If compounding was standard in the early days of American whiskey making, what about in Canada? Canada was settled a century later than the US, creating a significantly different whisky-making culture. Rather than a lone farmer with a single still, as American lore suggests, every current historic Canadian brand began in an industrial-scale flour or feed mill. While early American distillers aimed to produce alcohol, Canadian distillers, with only one exception, were disposing of milling waste. The concept of compounding did not cross their minds. They converted mill waste into animal feed and sold the resulting alcohol to bars, grocers, and provisioners.

The exception was Hiram Walker’s distillery in Walkerville (Windsor), Ontario. Right from the start, Walker intended to make whisky. For several decades, he had been a successful whisky compounder in Detroit, Michigan, and came to Canada only to escape growing temperance sentiments. The US remained Walker’s primary market though, and he brought American whiskey-making practices with him from Detroit. For instance, Hiram Walker’s 1891 recipe for Old Rye blended 10,000 gallons of 85.6 proof (42.8% abv) whisky with 5 gallons of tea extract, 5 gallons of rum, 10 gallons of syrup and 12.5 gallons of colouring. There is no evidence (yet — history unfolds), however, that any other Canadian distiller adopted compounding, although Gooderham and Worts was said to colour some of its whisky.

So, adding flavouring was common practice in the US, and according to Leopold, except for straight whiskeys and bourbon, 2.5 per cent flavouring is still allowed in the US without telling consumers. Surely not in Mother Scotland, though? Forget that until 1990, paxarette, a wine concentrate, was routinely added to sherry-cask Scotch.

At the final judging for the World Whiskies Awards this year, an independent bottler commented that Canada’s 9.09 per cent rule (sometimes called the one eleven rule) should never be permitted. Gurpreet Ranu of Canada’s Anohka Distillery listened gratefully as a sherry-cask broker from Spain exposed the hypocrisy of Scotch producers belittling Canadian whisky on this basis. The broker claimed that the rule created a level of transparency absent in other categories by explicitly permitting what much of the whisky world already practised. He explained that sherry casks contain litres of fortified wine when shipped and many whisky makers, surreptitiously, do precisely what Canada allows.

Don Livermore, current master blender at Hiram Walker Distillery, embraces Walker’s approach warmly. “This is our legacy, our tradition of what we’re doing,” he explains, adding that the ingredients added can be the most expensive ones. “I can only speak for Hiram Walker,” he cautions. “I don’t know about Crown Royal, for example.”

“Nobody criticised me when I put 52-year-old Scotch into Union 52. And it’s one more paint in my painter’s palette. I can add a little bit of bourbon or sherry to dial up some flavours or dial down flavours. I think this is what separates us. This drives home that blending is beautiful. It stretches out the flavour in the tasting experience, almost like an accordion.”

“I think we have a storytelling problem,” he continues. “That’s what I think the issue is. I don’t think it’s a 9.09 issue, and then when people get hold of 9.09, they hold it like a dog to a bone. 90909, no, you don’t quite understand. These are the best ingredients we put into it. We should celebrate it.”

However, to celebrate it, people must know about it, and this is the crux of Canadian whisky fans’ dismay. When Canadian Club released a series of whiskies ranging from 40 to 45 years old, they noted any younger spirits included in the 9.09. The whiskies were gorgeous, and fans still celebrate them. Similarly, Forty Creek routinely states up front when their annual release includes non-whisky components. Some others are less forthcoming.

Andrés Faustinelli, an amazingly innovative blender with the Mark Anthony Group, makes no bones about it, though. While his Bearface Triple Oak is 100 per cent whisky, he uses the regulation to push flavour boundaries in his limited-edition whiskies. “My interpretation goes well beyond the traditional use of non-whisky products like sherry or brandy,” says Faustinelli. “The rule allows for unique spirits — from a whisky origin story — to be used in the blend. In One Eleven, it was a rare lot of Agave Espadin aged for two years. This rule is one of the reasons Bearface can push the definitions and preconceptions of whisky. When we did the One Eleven release, our idea was to open the conversation around a topic no one wanted to address.”

For Irma Joeveer of Paradigm Spirits in London, Ontario, “The 9.09 per cent exists in three distinct realities. For enthusiasts, it’s either a misunderstood technicality or a self-proclaimed purist’s line in the sand they refuse to cross. For blenders like myself, it’s simply another tool in our flavour development toolkit — one that requires more precision, not less. And for the finance departments, it’s a lever for economics, trade, and taxation relief.”

What’s fascinating is how few average consumers even know it exists, while the resulting whiskies sometimes win top awards. This speaks volumes about what truly matters: not the methodology but the quality of what ends up in your glass. That said, I believe in transparency — celebrating our methods rather than hiding them allows consumers to appreciate the craft behind every bottle.”

When asked about the 9.09, the late Vicky Miller, who blended Black Velvet whisky, would spit on the ground, saying, “We’re proud of the whisky we make.” Still, she applied the rule as a commercial necessity for whisky exported to the US, and adjusted recipes so the US version with additives was indistinguishable from the original. Jonathan Goldberg, master distiller and blender at Black Velvet today, maintains that practice. “You need a light touch,” he advises, noting that some blending wines are more neutral than others.

With dozens of proposed “solutions”, all from people who, though deeply passionate about Canadian whisky, do not make it, the common objection boils down to secrecy. At least for premium bottlings, people want to know when they contain blending wine, and when age-stated whiskies contain younger whisky. But before fixing the problem, we should understand its origins and if it’s even a problem.

The 9.09 rule turns out to be more American than Canadian. The US 5010 tax credit, introduced in American tax law in 1954, provided tax savings on spirits that contained wine or spiritous flavouring. Federal taxes on whisky are much higher than on sherry, for instance, and US 5010 generated significant savings by taxing the flavourings separately, at their own rates. Thus, blends could be priced more competitively. The only proviso was that the originating country must permit such flavourings.

It appears this led Canadian regulators to introduce the 9.09 rule, although records of its origins, if they still exist, remain buried somewhere in government files. Nevertheless, Art Dawe, a young blender for Seagram’s in Montreal in the 1950s, remembered adjusting recipes for high-volume brands to take advantage of the new tax break. He maintained the original recipe for Seagram brands sold outside the US, while adjusting additive-containing US versions to taste exactly like the originals.

Many blurred and broken lines remain in the records, but severe crop failures in Florida’s orange groves throughout the 1980s support verbal commentary from retired distillery workers that a 1984 revision to Canada’s regulations addressed a sudden abundance of distilled spirits made from unsalable US oranges, leading to the mistaken belief that blenders must add American spirits.

Current trade uncertainties may make the original reasons for Canada’s 9.09 per cent rule obsolete, but there is no doubt that blenders today are using the rule to create some popular whiskies. Now, if only they would all tell us!